Place: Medford Leas Linden Room,
Rt. 70, Medford, NJ (When you enter Medford Leas from Rt 70 keep right, all
the way to the right, keep going through the parking lots, all the way to the
right, to the right in the back.)

Refreshments: Coffee & home-made
treats

Program

“EATING THE HOME-MADE HOLIDAY GOODIES THAT YOU ARE BRINGING TO THE
MEETING”

Everyone is asked to bring one home-made item to the meeting on
December 10; enough for five people.
That way there will be plenty. Cookies, crusciki, baklava,
cake, brownies, pie or fruit cake. There will be plates and knives, forks,
spoons and napkins provided.

President’s Remarks

Looking
forward to our annual BCRC Holiday Dinner on December 18. Medford
Leas puts on a wonderful meal. It will be a great time, especially since
Mable England and her family are joining us!

The Pizza
Party on November 10 at Angelo’s Pizzeria was great! We all had a
great time.

I am
looking forward to see what treats are being brought in for the party at our
meeting!

Happy Hanukah,
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Sunshine

December
birthdays:Happy Birthday!!

Maria
N2CIS, Jack N2VW wife, is home still receiving almost daily visits from a Home
Health Care Team to change dressings and do some PT. Healing is kind of slow
but there has been definite progress.
Marie, Bob’s K2QPN xyl, is doing better after neck
surgery.

Other News

Jack, N2VW, was in the recent CQ WW
DX CW Contest. He was on the air for 15 hours of the 48 hours allowed and made
his best CW score in years. A total of 426,816 points with 101 countries contacted
earning another DXCC award.

Can anyone tell me what 8.6 stands for? I will
give you a hint. It is not the Richter Scale. It is not the size of the
increase in the national debt per year.

I will tell you what it is; it is the number of
points expressed in millions that was scored by the crew at Mark’s, K2AX,
contest station in Winslow Township during the CQWW (WW = worldwide) DX CW
contest.

This contest is one of the “Big Four” contests in
the world; the others being the CQWW SSB, ARRL International CW and ARRL
International SSB.

If you are a member of the Frankford Radio Club,
the country’s oldest contest club, of which several of our members are also
members of FRC, it is one of the two big contests you have to participate in
yearly in order to maintain your membership. Unfortunately, this contest
occurs the weekend of Thanksgiving in this country; note that there are no other
nations that celebrate Thanksgiving (on that date) so it is not likely to
change any time soon.

Anyway, the point is that there are a lot of
great CW operators in this world. They come out of the woodwork to
participate in these two CW contests. I feel privileged to be associated with
such great operators.

My job that I volunteer for is to work the
overnight hours to keep the station on the air while everyone sleeps. Mostly
I have the run (sic) of the whole station at night. I must say,
comparatively, I am not that good of an operator yet but I keep working at
it.

There are two ways to approach contesting. You
can look around for stations calling “CQ contest” that sit on a frequency and
call CQ. Those who move around to work the guys calling CQ are called the descriptive
term “Search and Pounce “operators while the guys who sit on a frequency are
called “Runners”. If you want to score a lot of points you need to run. In
contesting there are stations that represent new countries that you work and
you get extra credit for working them one time, generally once per band and
they are called “multipliers”. It is like Field Day when we get a power
multiplier for using only 100 watts on the transmitters. And, of course, as
the contest goes on, it becomes more difficult to find new stations to work.

With so many stations on the air it is possible
to work DXCC in one weekend. While I was at home for part of the contest
sleeping, I put in several hours at my home station and I worked 98
countries. So, give contesting a try, who knows you may like it and you don’t
have to be a super operator to compete you can just compete against yourself
or trying to beat your score last year.

73,

Don, AK2S

From the Editor

Members,
this is your newsletter. Your input is welcome: your antenna news, your shack
updates, and equipment you have for sale. And, your personally written ham radio/STEM
oriented or EM/Races related articles would be welcomed for inclusion.

Looking forward there are some
opportunities for leadership coming in the next year:Newsletter Editor, Field Day Leader, Picnic
Coordinator (arranges a place and coordinates pot-luck contributions), Holiday
Dinner Administrator.Perhaps you have
some time to take on one of these activities. Remember the Three Musketeers
credo: “All for one and one for all”.

Thanks for the Sunshine input Bonnie WB2ALQ and the
editorial assistance of Frank K2SQS and Bonnie. Thanks for the special
technical assistance from Hugh KC2OGR, BCRC Web Master. And a shout out to Don
AK2S for contributing articles for your enjoyment.